Is Professionalism The Key To A Second Business?

The Internet gets a lot of credit (and blame!) for various things, but it's become central to our everyday living in a short amount of time. The first ever product sold online was a Pizza Hut pizza in 1994, but if you'd told people then that we'd soon even be buying houses on the internet, they'd have thought you were crazy!

What the internet has done, however, is connected everybody from the global to the very local. Small businesses are now able to have a presence that their customers can find whenever they want and social media allows us to connect directly with all sorts of goods and services that we can use.

Many people are now using this as a way to have second jobs and careers. There have always been people who very skilled - say as a make-up artist, piano instructor or yoga teacher - who 'dabbled' on the side, either doing it for friends or a small social group but never taking it any further. Either the cost of premises was too high or they didn't think it would be worth the extra effort. The internet, however, is changing all of that. Customers can now find you very easily with an internet search; social media means that positive reviews show up to others in their social group. Second careers have never been more viable.

This begs the question, however, of professionalism. Mobile hairdressers, for example, can make some good money, but whether they're visiting client homes or having customers in their home, it isn't always the best environment. The same is true for make-up artists or piano teachers - no matter how high quality the service is; it may be hard to charge the proper value for the work because of a perceived 'enthusiastic amateur' feel.

There is a way around this, however, which is to use a small, self-contained Garden Spaces room in the garden as a professional environment. Avoiding the costs of premises rental by working from your own building not only means you can keep more of the money that you make, but having a dedicated space to work also means you can charge more for a professional service!

Mobile barbers can have large mirrors, clippers, scissors and everything they could possibly need to hand, without unpacking or searching around in bags. Make-up artists can use good lighting and keep all the products they'd ever need on site, instead of 'making do' with whatever venue they're called into. Piano teachers can have a sound-proofed room where students don't worry about playing wrong notes and upsetting the family trying to watch television in the next room!

Garden Spaces rooms are all bespoke designed around the space you have available and constructed from modern, ecologically sound SIPs panels, meaning you have a usable space all year round. They're faster to build than traditional block and brick construction and can even be set up with electricity, water, Wi-Fi and shower facilities!

Years ago, those with a second skill may have had one customer a month and therefore never considered making a genuine second career out of their talents - but with a professional environment from Garden Spaces at the end of your garden path, you could well find yourself inundated with clients!